A Gift

Part 2

I’ve decided to step up the pace and post more often. Couldn’t wait til next week!

I rather sheepishly shared last Saturday’s post as I don’t wish to appear as some sort of channel or expert on God’s voice. I’m simply a person of faith trying to listen well. I know I get it wrong at times. Here, for what it’s worth, is the second part of the story.

The day I walked around Oxford at dawn was the first day of my continuing course at OCCA. I arrived at class early that morning for the informal breakfast time with the group. It was great to see all the classmates I’d been in our online sessions with and to catch up on their lives. Then the session began with a devotional and musical worship time.

I must confess that as a musician I’m very particular about singing in a group of worshippers. Contemporary songs in a faith setting are not my favorite. A guitar-led sing time often makes me feel uncomfortable and often distracting as it lacks a certain satisfaction of my musical tastes. This is all very embarrassing because it reveals a reticence on my part to move on into the future. But, surprisingly, the leader was a sensitive, thoughtful and musically adept leader and I enjoyed singing along, perhaps because the songs were mostly familiar ones. We sang one of my very favorite hymns in all the world: the Doxology.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Praise him all creatures here below

Praise him above ye heavenly hosts

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

I sang with all my heart, in gratefulness for the gift of the class, the trip, the morning experience I’d had. A thought came that I should get on my knees. I’d often as a younger Christian employed this posture and still now in private do as a symbol of my worship and adoration of God. It is commonplace in some High Church liturgies, but I was not in that setting. I’d just knelt, for example, in the Madonna Della Corona Sanctuary next to my new Italian friend Lucia. Everyone knelt at once. But I was not in church. I was among an informal group of people I’d barely gotten to know. What would everyone think? I can’t go to my knees now, I reasoned. No one else is doing it! It would be socially weird. I fought the idea until I remembered the cross in the middle of Broad Street and the two men who’d died there. I’d read what Latimer had reportedly remarked to his friend amidst the impending flames that would ravage their earthy bodies as a result of their refusal to turn from their faith.

‘Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out’

Here were two man willing to go to an excruciating death for their faith front of their enemies, and I couldn’t bring myself to kneel in front of friends? How much I care what others think! The impression I’d taken away from my early morning walk pressed upon me and I knelt. There was no fuss about it, and I resumed standing after a minute or so. It was a small surrender, but it meant that despite my natural timidity I had begun to develop a backbone even if in a very small way. By God’s grace Ridley and Latimer had certainly lit a small flame in me.

So, the gift did have a deeper meaning; one which I shall likely be working out in the coming weeks and months. I got the feeling that my steps will be small, but though small they will not be inconsequential. I must confess I even tried to resist writing about this as it is very personal. But, dear reader, you deserve my honesty and I’m determined to give it.